Soumya Boyanapalli

Professor Lynn M. Raymond

UWRT 1104
14 February 2017

Writing Prompt 4 Literacy Narrative

Between my mom and dad, I am very close to my mom. I would consider her to be one of
my best friends. We are very close to each other and have pretty strong relationship. In many
things such as looks, personalities, likes, dislikes, etc we have lot of things in common, which is
one of the reasons I chose her to interview. I thought it would be interesting to find out stories of
my moms childhood or teenage years to figure out if there were any similarities in her life at
similar age that I can relate to with my present life.
My mom is average height, not too tall, not too short, the perfect height. She has curly
hair that falls right below her shoulder but she got it permanently straightened so now her hair is
pin straight. Her eyebrows are on fleek, they are not too thick but fits her face perfectly, her eyes
are small like cat eyes with dark brown drops of chocolate, her nose is very pointy and straight,
very similar to mine. When I smile, or if you look at me from the side ways, her face, and mouth
is exactly same as mine. Our upper lips are small and lower lips are big. Overall my moms face
is very circular with a pointy chin. Her teeth are perfectly straight, which makes lot of people
jealous because she never had to have braces or anything. Her face has a two moles that suit her
face very well.
Overall my mom had a good childhood and lived a pretty upper class life. The drama and
the hassle all started when the time of her marriage came. My mom and my dad both meet in
college, the typical place to meet when you are young. My dad was head-over-heels for my
mom, she liked him as a friend but wasnt on similar feel. However, they fell in love and started
seeing each other. It started getting very serious when the time of marriage came. My dad really
wanted to marry mom and my mom felt the same way but there was one big problem that stood
in the way and that was the caste system. If you google about caste system in India, google
defines it as a class structure that is determined by birth. In olden days and even now in some
parts of India caste is a big issue. The caste system classified every single Indian into a category,
and this category couldnt be chosen, you were born into it. It ranged from the wealthiest to the
poorest. It even went to the point where if the higher caste found out you allow lower caste
people into their house they wouldnt even treat them as an actual human being. But my parents
were in love, and love can make people do some crazy stuff and the caste system was something
my parents didnt care about.
My mom is part of the higher caste whereas on the other hand my dad is from lower
caste. So as you can imagine my moms parents/my grandparents were not very fond of this
relationship, and both my parents knew that this would eventually cause problem in the long run.
There were many times that they would talk about this subject and most of their conversations
went like this;

Mom: I just dont know, my parents might not be alright with this matter
Dad: No, they will be, I will talk to them, I will convince them
Mom: I dont know, Im scared, I dont know if this will work out
Dad: I promise you it will, I will make it work, we love each other!
 In India, it was very important to get the parents approval. Most of the marriages in India
back in those days were arranged. It was very rare to find a married couple that married because
of love. So my dad went to my moms parents house to get approval. My grandparents loved my
mom very much and were the type of parents that didnt strongly believe in the caste system but
at the same time respected and valued human life. My grandparents initially hesitated to agree
thinking about the extended family members, but when my dad insisted that he loved her very
much, he would die if he couldnt marry her, and that he would keep her happy and give her
everything she desired, they having a kind soul and loving heart, agreed. They agreed to make
my mom happy and keep her happy. My moms whole side of the family was against it because
of the caste situation and my dads side was against it because of the dowry. In India when you
get married the girl side of the family gives the boys side dowry and my mom was totally against
the dowry system which is illegal in India.
So during the wedding, both sides of the family was very unhappy and upset but the
marriage went on and it happened.